Alberta advocacy groups seeking emergency appeal hearing over supervised consumption site ID requirements
Anna Junker
Alberta advocates are seeking an expedited appeal hearing to stop the province from implementing a policy that would require supervised consumption sites to ask users for personal health care numbers.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal The Safeworks supervised consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre is shown in Calgary on Thursday, May 27, 2021.
Plaintiffs Moms Stop the Harm and the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society sued the Alberta government over the new rules asking for identification, in part alleging the measures breach the rights of substance users and argued that some clients will be deterred from using the sites, leading to an increase in overdoses and deaths.
They asked the court to delay the implementation of the identification requirements until the constitutionality of the measures could be decided.
On Jan. 10, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil dismissed the injunction application against the province, meaning the identification policy is set to go into effect on Jan. 31.
Belzil wrote that although he believes some clients will experience “irreparable harm” by having an overdose — some of which may result in death — as a result of the new rule, it doesn’t outweigh the need for the provincial government to be able to make policy decisions.
In the emergency appeal application, lawyer Avnish Nanda wrote that Belzil’s decision was made on a number of errors that warrant the Court of Appeal of Alberta to intervene.
“This includes failing to apply the correct framework at the balance of convenience stage of the test for injunctive relief against state action, failing to apply the framework in an appropriate manner to the facts on record, and most critically, finding that preventing the deaths of marginalized, vulnerable Albertans did not provide a greater public benefit than delaying the implementation of the impugned state action,” Nanda said.
The plaintiffs are seeking an expedited appeal hearing of the decision before the policy is to go into effect “to avoid the preventable deaths that (Belzil) acknowledges will occur if the impugned state action is implemented,” Nanda said.
“The record tendered in support of the injunction applications establishes that a large number of people will die as a result of the impugned state action, leading to mass death that will exceed the current record overdose death rates in Alberta.”
The plaintiffs have also asked federal minister of mental health and addictions Carolyn Bennett to intervene . In an open letter, they asked Bennett to write to her Alberta counterpart to “assert federal jurisdiction over the regulation of supervised consumptions services in Canada … and amend class- and individual site-exemption letters issued to service providers to clarify that the mandatory collection of personally-identifying information is prohibited within federally exempted supervised consumption services.”
The groups are also asking Bennett to issue an immediate nationwide exemption on criminalization for simple drug possession, and for her to meet with the plaintiffs to discuss the matter.
ajunker@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/JunkerAnna
Plaintiffs Moms Stop the Harm and the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society sued the Alberta government over the new rules asking for identification, in part alleging the measures breach the rights of substance users and argued that some clients will be deterred from using the sites, leading to an increase in overdoses and deaths.
They asked the court to delay the implementation of the identification requirements until the constitutionality of the measures could be decided.
On Jan. 10, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil dismissed the injunction application against the province, meaning the identification policy is set to go into effect on Jan. 31.
Belzil wrote that although he believes some clients will experience “irreparable harm” by having an overdose — some of which may result in death — as a result of the new rule, it doesn’t outweigh the need for the provincial government to be able to make policy decisions.
In the emergency appeal application, lawyer Avnish Nanda wrote that Belzil’s decision was made on a number of errors that warrant the Court of Appeal of Alberta to intervene.
“This includes failing to apply the correct framework at the balance of convenience stage of the test for injunctive relief against state action, failing to apply the framework in an appropriate manner to the facts on record, and most critically, finding that preventing the deaths of marginalized, vulnerable Albertans did not provide a greater public benefit than delaying the implementation of the impugned state action,” Nanda said.
The plaintiffs are seeking an expedited appeal hearing of the decision before the policy is to go into effect “to avoid the preventable deaths that (Belzil) acknowledges will occur if the impugned state action is implemented,” Nanda said.
“The record tendered in support of the injunction applications establishes that a large number of people will die as a result of the impugned state action, leading to mass death that will exceed the current record overdose death rates in Alberta.”
The plaintiffs have also asked federal minister of mental health and addictions Carolyn Bennett to intervene . In an open letter, they asked Bennett to write to her Alberta counterpart to “assert federal jurisdiction over the regulation of supervised consumptions services in Canada … and amend class- and individual site-exemption letters issued to service providers to clarify that the mandatory collection of personally-identifying information is prohibited within federally exempted supervised consumption services.”
The groups are also asking Bennett to issue an immediate nationwide exemption on criminalization for simple drug possession, and for her to meet with the plaintiffs to discuss the matter.
ajunker@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/JunkerAnna
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